The Consequences Of Trivial Actions
by Ancisace
Summary: How would the FF8 story be different if Cid lost his glasses before the graduation ceremony?


'Sir, we simply MUST get the graduation ceremony out of the way so we can get to the meeting!'  
'Oh heck! I'm just going to have to manage without them! Have you got yours, young man?'  
'Mine? I have them right-oh bugger!'  
'Forget it! I'm only doing a speech! I dont ineed/i my glasses.'  
'Right as always, headmaster Cid'  
Cid gave the order, and the new SeeD graduates filed in and stood to attention. He gave them the standard welcome speech, which the graduates knew by heart anyway. Everything was going fine, until it was time to hand out the certificates.  
Cid could not tell who was who. He could barely see a thing without his glasses. In the end, he just guessed.  
'I'm looking forward to the garden festival'  
Zell did a double take. Selphie was in charge of the garden festival, wasn't she? He opened his mouth to say spmething, but he saw the faculty member giving him a dirty look so he said nothing.  
'Do your best, even if you dont stand out'  
Selphie's mouth hung open. She'd always thought that her loud, fairy-on-speed impression had made her the centre of attention. she shut her mouth again when she realised the faculty member was leering at her.  
'Try to control your emotions a little'  
Squall stared in disbelief. He'd always thought he was a closed book. The faculty member made eye contact, and he stopped staring.  
'At last...a gunblade specialist'  
Nida was dumbfounded. She was meant to be a gunblade expert? She'd learned computer tech instead! Shee tried to look innocent when she realised the faculty member was looking at her suspisciously.  
In the lift afterwards, each was lost in thought about how they could resolve their problems.  
Zell wondered what to do about the garden festival. He hadn't done ANYTHING for it. Then the answer just came to him: all he had to do was get it done quickly and nobody would notice he was ever behind schedule.  
Selphie wondered how to stand put more. After a moments thought, she realised what the cause of her problem was: She just wasn't being loud enough! it was so easy to fix!!  
Squall quickly thought of a solution to his problem of emotional incontinence: he would simply not react to anything at all!  
As for Nida, she decided that if she learned enough gunblade skill to bluff, nobody would notice she'd only ever used one once before!  
When they got out of the lift,It was time to put their respective plans into action. Selphie immediately ran out screaming 'WOO-HOOOO! I'M A SeeD!!' Glass shattered. Nearby plants wilted.  
The sound of breaking glass made Zell realise something: If he was runing the garden festival, he had access to the festival budget!  
'OHHHHHH BYEAH!/B750000 GIL BUDGET, BABY!'  
Squall and Nida stepped out of the lift and stood there, bleeding slightly from the ears and saying nothing. Squall was just not doing anything, but Nida had a plan...  
After Nida and Zell managed to grab an arm each so they could drag Selphie along, they all left the lift corridor and headed for the classroom. The disiplinary commitee and those who failed were waiting for them.  
When the applause broke the tension, Selphie turned a cartwheel and screamed 'THANKS, YOU GUYS!'  
Nida saw her chance. She reached out and snatched Squall's gunblade from its holster. She thought desperately, and tried to copy Seifer's fancy sword twirl.  
She did pretty well...until she tried to actually swing the thing. She neatly sliced off the tip of her left ear, nearly put a bullet through the brain of Fujin and was two millimeters away from severing Selphie's arm. The blade slipped out of Nida's grasp and flew across the corridor, sticking in the wall quivering approximately two inches from the face of Quistis, who had come out to see where the noise that had cracked her glasses had come from.  
Zell glared at Squall from his hiding place (behind Selphie).  
'Dammit Squall! Why did you let the geek take your sword!? You wouldn't even let me SEE it!'  
Seifer sniggered.  
'Maybe he only gives his sword to people who can use one better than him!'  
Everybody laughed except Squall, who said nothing.  
'WHATS THE MATTER, SQUALL? FORGE HOW TO TALK!?' screeched Selphie. Still Squall said nothing.  
Zell walked up to Squall and waved his hand in front of his eyes.  
'Hello-o?'  
Nothing.  
Zell grinned.  
'If your an asshole, don't speak!'  
there was a chorus of 'I can talk' and 'not me!' with the occasional 'ya know?' tossed in. Squall said nothing.  
'Hey, my turn!' said Seifer. 'If you are NOT a homosexual,' he said loudly, 'please raise your hand!'  
Everybody raised there hand except Squall (who said nothing) and Raijin (who just shrugged).  
Everybody laughed real hard, until Quistis ordered everyone back into the classroom so the graduates could give their speeches. She counted to three and said '...Whatever.'  
She looked around, puzzled. Squall had said nothing. She shrugged, and went into the classroom.  
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO  
Zell took his fingers out of his ears and opened his eyes to the devastation all around him. Broken glass from shatteredmonitors littered the floor. The room was filled with smoke from the paer that had spontaneously combusted, and his desk toy was now a small lump of melted plastic.  
Quistis' eyes appeared over the edge of the desk. When she saw the coast was clear, she brushed herself off and sat on her chair, ignoring the dust from damaged ceiling plaster.  
'Um, thank you Selphie. Now-'  
She was interrupted by by the arrival of the trepe groupies. Zell noticed they had grazed knuckles, and that there were blood stains on their clothes.  
'Where have you been!? and where the heck is Nida?' she demanded.  
One of the trepies smirked.  
'After she nearly killed you, he had to go to see Dr Kadowaki because of the trauma that it caused...'  
'Emotional trauma?'  
'Emotional, facial, spinal...'  
The Trepie cracked her knuckles and grinned at Quistis.  
Quistis threw the shattered remains of her glasses onto the floor and stood up.  
'RIGHT, I've just about had it! First there was Squall's so called 'speech'. Then we had Zell's charming little dissertation, 'Why I Love Hot Dogs'. And after that, we had selphie screaming at us, which just caused the biggest hurricane in Deling city since records began if chaos theory is to believed. Get out of my sight, class dissmissed!'  
Zell jumped up and ran out of the door. He hitched a ride to Balamb and ran up to his house.  
'Hey mom? I have some friends coming over. Can you send them up one at a time?'  
'Sure. Play nicely'  
Zell flopped onto his bed, grinning smugly. It was so easy! Half his budget had already been spent for him on the set. All he had to worry about was the entertainment. He had the music, and now he needed dancers...  
He heard footsteps on the stairs and stood up. An attractive, scantily clad woman bounced in.  
'Hi, I'm Debbie! I'm here for the audition?'  
Zell smiled broadly.  
'Hey Debbie. Whenever your ready...'  
'Before we start, I want you 4000 gil per dance at the audition, and 15000 gil IN ADVANCE if I get picked.'  
'WHAAAAAAAT!?'  
'Union rates, kid...'  
'Tch, fine!'  
He jabbed the button on his CD player and the music started. Debbie began to dance. Zell watched carefully.  
'Hey, thats pretty good!...huh?...What are you-...!...Don't take that off, Its not that sort of dance!....hmmm...Where did I put that 10gil bill?'  
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO  
Nida found it hard to swing the sword with the neck brace on, but she wouldn't give up.  
She staggered into the training centre. She dealt shiny death to an inoffensive piece of shrubbery and felt a little happier. She showed no mercy to a small thorn bush. Next, she beat seven shades of snot out of a dried-up old tree stump.  
Her confidence grew. She swelled up his chest as much as it was possible with three broken ribs. She strutted along, despite the pain until she heard a snapping noise behind her. Wincing, she turned around. Standing there was a fully grown T-rexaur, looking at her with an expression of what could be called amused curiosity. She got into a fighting stance as best she could.  
Her voice was a little nasal due to the broken nose, but she shouted 'Prepare to die!'  
She hopped towards the T-rexaur, screaming with pain and terror more than for the intimidation factor.. The dino looked surprised. Just about halfway there, she tripped over a terminally pruned bush and went sprawling. The gunblade flew out of her hand again, this time sticking into the big toe of the T-rexaur. 10hp popped out of its head.  
The T-rexaur seemed more puzzled than angry. It stomped over to Nida and sniffed at her suspiciously. Nida struggled into a sitting position, waggled her fingers and grinned nervously.  
The dinosaur turned around, apparrently losing interest. Nida breathed a sigh of relief. It was at that moment that Nida heard a strange rumbling sound. He looked up, dreading what he would see. The T-rexaur was holding its tail in a funny position, and its back legs were shaking.  
Nida's eyes opened wide in horror.  
'OHHHHHH SHI-'  
Her words were drowned out by the torrent of brown filth that landed on her.  
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO  
Selphie ran around the party hall, fires of black rage burning in her eyes.  
'WHERE IS HE!?' she screamed, damaging the crystal chandeliers.  
She wasn't looking where she was going, so she ran into Zell, who was munching a hot dog and looking really pleased with himself.  
Selphie picked herself up and stalked over to Zell. She bent over and picked him up by the shirt as though he were made of straw. Zell's toes were barely touching the ground as Selphie shook him.  
'Hey Selphie. Whats with the demon look?'  
Selphie raised Zell even higher. His feet were now an inch clear of the floor.  
'Where is the goddamn MONEY!?!' screamed Selphie, causing Zell's hair spikes to go limp.  
He looked puzzled for a moment, and then he grinned.  
'Oh, you mean the garden festival? Don't worry, I've got it sorted.'  
Selphie's eyes blazed red. Zell was now two inches off the floor.  
'You spent 350 000 gil of MY budget on STRIPPERS!'  
'Well, yeah. I had to make sure I found the right one and boy, do those audition fees mount up. And then we needed to work on choreography and-'  
he was interrupted by Selphie, who achieved it by throwing him across the room. He landed heavily on a buffet table, which collapsed with the impact. Selphie pounced, and landed upon Zell, punching and kicking. They rolled around on the floor, the occasional fireball or chunk of ice hitting the people who were crowding around to watch.  
Squall saw everyone was distracted. Nobody was watching him, so he sneaked a glance upwards. A shooting star flashed overhead, looking beautiful in the starry night.  
He noticed someone else had seen him looking, so he reverted to "plank" mode. The girl paid no attention to his stonewalling her. She held a finger up in the air, ffering him one wish. Squall did nothing. The girl shrugged, and wandered off to watch the fight. Squall walked over to the balcony to look at the stars some more.  
Meanwhile, Zell rolled backwards and kicked out. Selphie went flying and thumped ito a wall sliding down painfully out of the dent. She leaped up and crouched into a spell casting position.  
'Take THIS!'  
The fireball narrowly missed Zell, but it set his hair on fire, causing him to run around screaming like a girl. People dived out of the way as the fireball sailed across the room and out onto the balcony. There was a long, drawn-out scream cut off suddenly by a damp, squelching noise. The ominous sound of silence clashed through the audience.  
Everybody walked over to the baclony and peered over the edge. Two women fainted at what they saw. One man vomited noisily.  
Zell looked at Selphie, who looked back at Zell. Zell decided it was time to say something profound, moving and mature. He tried in vain to get his spikes to stand up, but Selphie's screaming had made it futile. He took a deep breath and looked Selphie straight in the eye. Everyone held their breath expectantly, waiting for the kind of quote people put in birthday cards. He cleared his throat.  
'There is no way in HELL I'm taking the heat for this one, worm features!'  
The End. 


End file.
